Few people would argue that core training is an integral part of an athletic development training program. Aesthetic benefits aside, core training is widely accepted as improving:

1. Lumbar stability and therefore reducing risk and/or symptoms of low back pain
2. Force transfer between the lower and upper body, which improves power in just about every athletic movement (kicking a soccer ball, swinging a bat, lacrosse and hockey shooting, fighting off defenders in every contact sport)
3. Stability of the pelvis to allow for more efficient lower body movements, such as rapidly changing direction

Because of the core’s importance in both maximizing performance and minimizing injury risk, core stabilization concepts are one of the underlying foundations of all of our training programs at Endeavor. If you’ve been reading our newsletters for the last year (and I know you have!), you know that our entire staff actively seeks out new information to better design programs to help our athletes. Last week I came across a draft of an article from Eyal Lederman, a professor in London, titled “The Myth of Core Stability.” I’m always intrigued by articles that argue against the norm as these are usually the most eye opening.

Lederman argued that the evidence in support of core stability training to back pain is pretty limited. He notes that strength may not be the issue since some of the major core muscles are minimally active during activities of daily living. As a quick background, muscles become “active” when the body sends an electrical signal to the muscle to contract. For study purposes, the signal is often “normalized” to a maximal value for that muscle (MVC). When we talk about these “maximal” values, we need to keep in mind that maximum activation is highly dependent upon the length of the muscle and direction of the movement, but I won’t bore you with all the underlying neuroscience.

The article cites research demonstrating that walking necessitates average values of:

• 2% MVC from the rectus abdominis (the six pack muscle)
• 5% MVC from the external obliques

Further research is cited painting the picture that normal activities (even some with external loads added) require minimal trunk muscle activity (between 1-5% MVC).

The underlying tone of the article was that core stability training is foolish and scientifically unsupported. I bring up this article because many times these things work their way to your eyes and ears through the media with headlines like “Core Training Is Not Important” as some staff writer attempts to create an interesting story with out-of-context research. Within an athletic context, there are a few things worth keeping in mind:

• The article cites trunk activity during walking and standing, not sprinting, cutting, jumping, swinging, throwing, shooting, or blocking
• The article is put within the frame of solving back pain, not optimizing performance
• The article largely ignores evidence of active people with back pain resolving symptoms by putting a greater focus on improving their posture and core stability
• Like many academics, this article systematically (although using flawed logic) dismisses many commonly held beliefs about core training, but fails to offer any alternative

Our core training system functions to integrate appropriate mobility and stability of the pelvis and spine into athletic movements. We follow a basic progression of:

1. Reinforce core stability in static positions (front planks, side planks, glute bridges, anti-rotation belly press isoholds, etc.)
2. Increase challenge to static core stability by adding a dynamic component (chop and lift variations, plank and bridge “marches”, rollouts, tight rotations, 2-Way Bunkie side planks, dynamic anti-rotation belly press’, etc.)
3. Maximize unexpected dynamic stiffness through perturbation training (Split stance belly press with perturbation, overhead stability ball perturbation, squat with overhead stability ball perturbation, split squat with overhead stability ball perturbation, stability ball front plank with perturbation, side plank with perturbation, etc.)

While I think most people are at least loosely familiar with the first two steps of this progression, few athletes have been exposed to perturbation training. I strongly believe this type of training will drastically increase in popularity over the next several years. Check out videos of a couple of the more advanced progressions of perturbation training at the link below. Have you ever seen anything like this?
 

Split Squat IsoHold with Overhead Stability Ball Perturbation

Stability Ball Front Plank with Perturbation

Colby Cohen and Jeff Buvinow do a great demonstrating these exercises. The goal is to not move at all or, more realistically, to minimize the displacement and return to "neutral" as quickly as possible. It's hard to tell from the video, but I'm really "cranking" on them pretty hard. We progress to more vigorous perturbations, but ultimately we want to challenge their stability in multiple directions. We can also have them maintain stiffness throughout the entire exercise, which gives it a more "battle" feel or have them relax and try to react to the perturbation as quickly as possible. In the first video, I'm randomly alternating amongst pushing, pulling, and rotating the ball in a variety of directions. In the second video, I'm somewhat randomly alternating between rotating the hips, rotating the shoulder, and laterally deviating the hips and shoulders. By creating a random variety of stresses, the athlete learns to reflexively generate stiffness.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld, MS, CSCS

Every week I get questions about core training from athletes and parents. Core training is right there with conditioning as being one of the most MISunderstood aspects of athletic development.

Your core truly creates the foundation for EVERY movement. As such, it’s important that athletes train to have adequate core control, strength, and endurance.

In order to properly train the core, we need to know what it is. I still see so many young athletes doing crunches, sit-ups, leg throw downs, Russian twists and Supermans. This exemplifies that, as a whole, the athletic community still doesn’t understand the core’s composition and function. Most think of the core as the 6-pack muscles. Others are enlightened enough to include the obliques. In reality these muscles are only a drop in the bucket.

Cross Section of the Midsection

Medial and Lateral Hip Musculature

Dozens of Posterior Muscles Attaching to the Hips and Spine             

The core includes every muscle (several dozen) that attaches to the hips and spine. Collectively, these muscles serve to:

1. Create a stable foundation for extremity (leg/arm) movement
2. Transfer force between the lower and upper body

Individually, these muscles have a large variety of purposes, from decelerating powerful movements to stabilizing individual spinal segments, to sending information back to your brain about the velocity and force of stresses placed across them.

Core Training Pitfalls
Re-read the two primary purposes of the core and take a moment to examine how traditional core training exercises (e.g. crunches/sit-ups, leg throw downs, Russian twists, and Supermans) fit within that context. You’ll quickly realize that they don’t, at all. None of these exercises teach your body to create stability through the midsection or to transfer force. These exercises are meant to “isolate” certain core muscles in nonsense movement patterns.

These exercises teach and reinforce movement skills you don’t need and can be downright dangerous. Dr. Stuart McGill has shown that repetitive rounding of the lower back (especially when in conjunction with rotation, as in a Russian twist) is a great way to slip a disc and Supermans cause excessive stress to the facets of your lower spinal segments. There’s a reason why so many people get back pain from these exercises!

Training the Core for Athletic Prowess
In contrast, basic exercises like front planks, side planks and glute brdiges reinforce the linking between the hips and upper body, proper posture, and activate the core muscles to a greater extent than the more commonly used garbage exercises anyway!

At Endeavor, we progress these basic exercises to exercises that involve stabilization against linear (slideboard rollouts), lateral (2-way bunkie side planks), rotational (standing belly press), and diagonal forces (tall kneeling chop). When a solid foundation is built, athletes are better able to control hip movement (essential for quick direction changes), have an improved ability to transfer force between the lower and upper body (essential for sprinting, shooting, hitting, kicking, etc.) and have a substantially lower risk of hip, abdominal, lower back, and shoulder injuries.

Every time I see an athlete doing one of those “traditional” core exercises I cringe. The best case scenario is that they’re just wasting their time. Worst case scenario is that they hurt themselves and reinforce muscle imbalances and poor posture that will likely get them hurt in the future.

Train hard, but train smart. Start training your core to improve its true function. Your body will thank you in the long run.

To your continued success,

Kevin Neeld